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In a stew over winter meals?: Get some tips from a local expert

By Judi Brinegar

Soups and stews hit the spot on a cold Winter day. You’ve checked your cupboards for ingredients and made up your shopping list for those few missing items. Your recipe also calls for a pound of stew beef, but you are not sure what cut of meat would be the best to use.

“My personal choice would definitely be chuck roast for soups and stews,” he says. “You cut the seams out of the center of the roast and cut it up into (bite-size) pieces. It will just fall apart when you cook it.”

While there are many beef cuts available, chuck is the most often recommended cut, both for quality and affordability. It is not overly fatty and has something called collagen that, during the long, low cooking process, breaks down and makes the meat tender and more flavorful.

Beef for stewing can be purchased already trimmed, cubed and packaged in most food stores. It is often labeled “stew meat” without describing the cut from which the meat was obtained. Crawford says look for stew meat that has some marbling and that connective tissue and it is probably a type of chuck. You can also purchase a chuck roast and cut it into pieces at home. It may be less expensive to trim and cut the beef yourself and as a result, you will know exactly what you’re getting.

“If you can find a chuck roast, your butcher can cut it up for you in about five minutes,” Crawford says. “We always keep it available because it is my favorite cut. “I like the shredded texture you get when you cook with it.”

Tip: If you’re making a stew and the meat still seems chewy, just let it simmer for a little longer. Keep checking it every 15 minutes or so, and eventually it will hit the point where it goes from tough to tender.

Tip: Chicken tenders or breast meat is best for a yummy White Chicken Chili or chicken soup. Pork loin cut into bite-size cubes is recommended for a hearty Green Chili Pork Stew.

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Marbling

Time and again, cooks are urged to remove all fat from the food they prepare. However, sometimes a little fat can make the difference between a tasty, tender cut of meat and a tough, chewy one.

For a tender cut of beef or pork, look for little flecks and streaks of intramuscular fat or marbling evenly distributed throughout the cut.

Some quality cuts of beef, like filet mignon, will not have this marbling. That’s why filet mignon is usually wrapped with bacon or some other type of fat to ensure it doesn’t dry out in the cooking process.